Propogation delays

Propagation delays occur when there is a chain reaction, a sequence of reactions which take time to work down the chain. Think of a line of traffic waiting at the red light. The light turns green: the driver of the first car doesn’t move instantaneously, it takes a moment to registers the change, perhaps move the car into gear or take the hand break off, moment to press the accelerator and a moment for the engine to start moving the car.

The second car in the line might be watching the traffic light but they are also watching the car in front. Only when the break lights (if on) go off and the car begins to move can they move. And so on.

It takes time for the change to work its way down the line.

The same thing happens in integrated circuits, silicon chips. Even electrons take time to move. Reducing propagation delays is one of the ways chips get to go faster.

Once you know about propagation delays you start seeing them everywhere. Increasingly I not only see them in software development teams but I talk about them. But not everyone knows the concept, hence this blog.

Propagation delays occur when one team, or one developer, changes some code, or perhaps a database schema, and it takes time for all the other team members to update their code base and make any resulting changes.

Propagation delays occur when a company decides to start doing something, or stop doing something, and it takes time to work down the chain and to actually stop or start.

Propagation delays cause tension because different people, or teams, are working to different assumptions.

As with chips and traffic reducing propagation delays can speed things up.